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Planning, Poems, and Other Good Things
- Letter from Janice
- Cursive handwriting made easy
- "Easter Wings" and other spring poems
- Practical Homeschooling Reader Award and new column
- Reviews posted on Working it Out
- New link format at EIL
- Classics-Based Writing and Worldbook at Schoolhouse Teachers
- Teaching the Arts Classically symposium
Dear [firstname],
Spring has arrived in the northern hemisphere, and I find I can hardly stay inside — I want to be out where it's beautiful and the sun is warm. We'll be on our way to the Great Homeschool Convention in Cincinnati this weekend, though, so perhaps we can enjoy seeing some of you there.
We have a special summer coming up here. Our son and his wife and our two grandchildren (and the dog) are all in residence here until they find a new home. They sold their house two days after it was listed, so they have a peaceful country summer to look forward to! My granddaughter has already put sewing and crochet lessons on the schedule, and poetry teatimes and penmanship are coming up too. It's going to be an interesting summer!
I wish you peace and joy in the coming month.
—Janice Campbell
Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries . . .
From Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning |
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Classics-Based Writing and World Book now at SchoolhouseTeachers!
If you are waiting more or less patiently for Model-Based Writing (that next book that's almost here) it is still with the editor (I'm hoping it will be completed sometime this summer), but for now, there are a number of lessons in my SchoolhouseTeachers Classics-Based Writing Class. There are a lot of other classes for all ages at SchoolhouseTeachers, plus many other great resources, now including access to World Book! It's inexpensive — you can try a month for just $5, so even if you use only a few classes, it can be a good deal. |
| | | | Cursive handwriting made easy!One book, four lessonsMany people feel that they don’t have time to teach cursive with all the other things that students need to know, but CursiveLogic has completely eliminated that issue. In four simple lessons, students learn to write all the letters of the alphabet in a tidy, clean cursive script. Each CursiveLogic worktext includes four foundational lessons, consumable practice pages, and three dry-erase pages for review. It’s the first cursive book I’ve seen with a teaching method I can recommend. Each lesson focuses on a group of letters, organized by shape. Students learn - Basic shape of the letter family
- Starting point for all letters in the group
- Where the first stroke begins
- A catch phrase to recite as they practice.
I believe that students can learn the basics of good penmanship with the use of one book, then practice it in context through copywork and composition. This places the skill in its proper place as a learning tool, not as an end in itself. Students benefit from using handwriting, either cursive or italic, to learn other things, so it makes sense to master it quickly and use it forever.
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Reading and writing
As I mentioned in last month's newsletter, my goal for this year is to read more. Just as children can't write well unless they are saturated in living ideas and well-written words, neither can I. I'm still reading essays, and I'm also getting close to the end of Anne of Green Gables. I hadn't read it in years, but it's a perfect springtime book with its lyrical appreciation of creation. I had not noticed in earlier readings how often spiritual imagery was used to illumine the beauty of nature. One brief quote for you:
"The "Avenue" . . . was a stretch of road four or five hundred yards long, completely arched over with huge, wide-spreading apple-trees, planted years ago by an eccentric old farmer. Overhead was one long canopy of snowy fragrant bloom. Below the boughs the air was full of a purple twilight and far ahead a glimpse of painted sunset sky shone like a great rose window at the end of a cathedral aisle."
Other than fiction and essays, I've been reading poetry. I'm deep into Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, as well as the usual assortment of shorter works. You can read some April poems at Excellence-in-Literature.com and George Herbert's beautiful "Easter Wings" at DoingWhatMatters.com.
If you'd like to get better acquainted with poetry, you might want to take a look at Working it Out, a unique devotional that teaches a method of poetry analysis that can be applied to other poems. I've posted several new review comments on the WIO page so you can see how people are using it. |
| | | Change in link structure at Excellence in Literature
The Excellence in Literature website has been growing for a number of years, and now hosts over 800 pages of resources for the study of literature. These include poetry, short stories, and other context resources, plus a growing selection of how-to articles.
We recently changed the link structure to make all links shorter so that students using Excellence in Literature can more quickly reach the resource they need. This helpful Link Update article will explain the change and suggest additional ways to locate resources. All links will be https, rather than http, also.
We finally got the Excellence in Literature book lists linked to the recommended edition of each focus and honors text. Since the old widgets disappeared, we've tried several different ways to link, but finally settled on linking the books as they are listed in the study guide product description at Everyday Education. I hope that's helpful! You don't have to use the recommended edition, but there are reasons I prefer them, and you'll find my criteria listed on this page as well.
And of course, all Amazon links are affiliate links. |
| | Practical Homeschooling Reader Award and new column
I'm happy to announce that Excellence in Literature has made it into the Reader Awards from Practical Homeschooling magazine! PHS is one of the oldest homeschool magazines, created by homeschooling pioneer Mary Pride and her family.
I've also just turned in my first "Final Word" column for the magazine. You'll find it on the (surprise!) final page of each issue of Practical Homeschooling. Enjoy!
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| | | Peaceful Planning and Record-keeping
I've long had in mind the project of creating planning and recordkeeping booklets that reflected the type of planning I always ended up doing. I finally got it done, and you can read about the Peaceful Planning system at PeacefulPlanning.net. There are four booklets:
Lifetime Reading List
For quite a few years of homeschooling, I'd buy a teacher plan book from the teacher store or set up a big binder with highly organized and structured daily plans and overall organizational schemes. These usually lasted a few weeks (if I was lucky and tried really, really hard), but in the end, I always went back to keeping short, simple records in the 5.5 x 8.5" format of my daily planner. Somehow, it didn't seem overwhelming to pick it up for reference or adding more notes, and I would actually end up with what I needed to keep track of written down. My homeschool records were cobbled together over a number of years and boys, so they weren't as beautiful or orderly as I would have liked. With these little books, your plans and records can be simple and beautiful. I hope you find them helpful! |
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CursiveLogic The one-book cursive curriculum that makes sense. Your student can learn cursive in four easy lessons! Each CursiveLogic worktext includes the four foundational lessons, consumable practice pages, and three dry-erase pages for review. $29
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April Poems
There's something about a change of season that makes me want to read poetry (another thing I try to do at least a couple of times each week), so I gathered a selection of March poems for copywork, memorization, recitation, or simply delight. |
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At Everyday Education you'll find an article with brief instructions for simple, peaceful planning and recordkeeping, and at DoingWhatMatters.com, you'll find a number of posts on planning and organization. |
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Teaching the Arts Classically
Join Professor Carol Reynolds and friends for a one-day session in exploring the teaching of artistic beauty in Classical Education.
The schedule is being finalized, but proposed sessions include:
- A Classical Approach to Artistic Literacy, Dr. Carol Reynolds
- Good Taste and Good Conduct—Is There a Connection?, Dr. Matthew Post, Graduate Director of Humanities and Classical Education, University of Dallas
- Vitruvius and Beauty: Lessons from an Ancient Architect, Jenny Dickinson, Architect/Classical Educator\
- Poetry and Meaning: Theories and Strategies, Fr. Garrin Dickinson, Rector, Church of the Holy Nativity
- What the 19th Century Did to Art, Dr. Carol Reynolds
Saturday, May 13, 2017 from 8:30 AM to 3:30 PM (CDT) in Plano, Texas.
This Symposium on Classical Education is sponsored jointly by Professor Carol and The University of Dallas for teachers, administrators, homeschool parents, and others interested in a classical approach to education. Register at EventBrite. |
| | Conference Schedule
Because I'm taking a two-year class that meets on weekends and have a lot of writing to do, the only homeschool conferences I plan to be at this year are the Great Homeschool Conventions in Fort Worth, Greenville (SC), Cincinnati, Southern California, and St. Louis (dates and details at GreatHomeschoolConventions.com) I hope I'll see you there! |
| | Just for fun: Quick, Draw! Have you tried Google's Quick, Draw? It reminds me of Pictionary, except that you have 20 seconds to draw whatever the app suggests, and you're drawing with your finger, mouse, or trackpad on a screen. The purpose of it is to teach Google's neural network to recognize doodles "by adding your drawings to the world’s largest doodle data set." The robotic voice that tries to guess what you're drawing is quite funny. |
| | | Everyday Education, LLC is the publisher of the Excellence in Literature curriculum, the 1857 McGuffey Readers with instructions for use with Charlotte Mason methods, Perfect Reading, Beautiful Handwriting; Transcripts Made Easy; and other homeschool helps. We've been online since 2001, which is a really long time in internet years.
The DoingWhatMatters.com blog has been online since 2007, and has quite a few articles on teaching with a classical/Charlotte Mason focus. We moved it from a different address a couple of years ago, so are still updating and relinking articles. There's useful stuff, there, though, so I hope you'll find it interesting. |
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